Linked by the connection of feminism, sociology, and cultural studies, Changing Cultures assesses feminist theory, its transformations, and its ability to highlight issues and practices. This controversial yet stimulating volume explores the complex relationship between these three subjects, conceptual approaches, their political implications and their historical context. Nava analyzes utopianism of feminist thought on the family; sexuality and sexual differences in youth service provision; and the symbolic resonance of the urban and domestic education of girls. She also investigates the relationship of child sexual abuse to problems of interpretation and the politics of media representation, and different theories of consumerism and advertising and their implications for our understanding of youth and identity.
Controversial yet accessible, Changing Cultures will attract a wide range of readers, from women's studies to interpersonal violence,
youth/adolescent studies to cultural studies.
"This is a lively and stimulating collection, a series of essays which spans the recent history of feminism and cultural studies and which draws together the pleasures and the pain of these encounters with clarity and theoretical fluency."
--Angela McRobbie, Thames Valley University
"This is a collection of previously published articles which were well worth gathering together, and which I'm pleased to have on my bookshelf."
--Chartist
"The essays are interesting, provocative, and theoretical in nature. . . . Excellent references are given throughout. If seeking a political, historical, and theoretical evaluation of the topics discussed, one can find a brief summary and excellent references. . . . [The book] provides food for thought and intellectual stimulation."
--Journal of Consumer Affairs

Introduction

Intellectual Work in Context and Process

From Utopian to Scientific Feminism? Critical Analyses of the Family

A Girls' Project and Some Responses to Lesbianism Youth Service Provision, Social Order and the Question of Girls

The Urban, the Domestic and Education for Girls

Drawing the Line

A Feminist Response to Adult-Child Sexual Relations

Outrage and Anxiety in the Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse

Cleveland and the Press

Consumerism and its Contradictions

with Orson Nava

Discriminating or Duped? Young People as Consumers of Advertising/Art

Consumerism Reconsidered

Buying and Power

`Historically contextualises the debates that have informed the theoretical frameworks by which consumerism has come to be understood. It plots a course from the passive consumer to the resistant consumer, noting the ossification of different positions into orthodoxies. It suggests that consumption is not such an easy matter to understand, always dependent upon practice and context. The thesis is supported by the use of original empirical research into young people and advertising which cleverly separates the practice of consuming and producing the meaning of adverts from consuming the product being advertised. This analysis draws the reader into the many paradoxes of consumption. This is a fine example of how the book as a whole is an argument against generalist theoretical sweeps which do not take the nuances, contexts and contradictory behaviour of consumers into account' - Beverley Skeggs, Lancaster University

`This is a lively and stimulating collection, a series of essays which spans the recent history of feminism and cultural studies and which draws together the pleasures and the pain of these encounters with clarity and theoretical fluency' - Angela McRobbie, Loughborough Univeristy

`The book represents a cultural history of the 1970s and 1980s...Its discourse helps us to reach a clearer intellectual understanding of the ways in which both individuals and society adjust to and settle within the shifting parameters of personal life. These shifts are followed through into their impact upon the political sphere...This is a collection of previously published articles which were well worth gathering together, and which I'm pleased to have on my bookshelf' - Chartist - For Democratic Socialism